Exodus 22:25-27

22:25 “If you lend money to any of ¹  my people who are needy among you, do not be like a moneylender ²  to him; do not charge ³  him interest. ⁴  22:26 If you do take ⁵  the garment of your neighbor in pledge, you must return it to him by the time the sun goes down, ⁶  22:27 for it is his only covering – it is his garment for his body. ⁷  What else can he sleep in? ⁸  And ⁹  when he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am gracious.

[22:25]  ¹ tn “any of” has been supplied.

[22:25]  ² sn The moneylender will be demanding and exacting. In Ps 109:11 and 2 Kgs 4:1 the word is rendered as “extortioner.”

[22:25]  ³ tn Heb “set.”

[22:25]  ⁴ sn In ancient times money was lent primarily for poverty and not for commercial ventures (H. Gamoran, “The Biblical Law against Loans on Interest,” JNES 30 [1971]: 127-34). The lending to the poor was essentially a charity, and so not to be an opportunity to make money from another person’s misfortune. The word נֶשֶׁךְ (neshekh) may be derived from a verb that means “to bite,” and so the idea of usury or interest was that of putting out one’s money with a bite in it (See S. Stein, “The Laws on Interest in the Old Testament,” JTS 4 [1953]: 161-70; and E. Neufeld, “The Prohibition against Loans at Interest in the Old Testament,” HUCA 26 [1955]: 355-412).

[22:26]  ⁵ tn The construction again uses the infinitive absolute with the verb in the conditional clause to stress the condition.

[22:26]  ⁶ tn The clause uses the preposition, the infinitive construct, and the noun that is the subjective genitive – “at the going in of the sun.”

[22:27]  ⁷ tn Heb “his skin.”

[22:27]  ⁸ tn Literally the text reads, “In what can he lie down?” The cloak would be used for a covering at night to use when sleeping. The garment, then, was the property that could not be taken and not given back – it was the last possession. The modern idiom of “the shirt off his back” gets at the point being made here.

[22:27]  ⁹ tn Heb “and it will be.”